I was able to get my F# code to compile using .NET Core yesterday! It's difficult to find the correct project.json parameters and you have to build the latest CLI yourself, but it works.
I used fsharp-dnx. The problem was it then doesn't support non .NET core targets. So for library development it's a real pain in the arse when you want to build multiple .NET targets (net45,net46,dnx...) with the same project.json.
The whole thing is a total mess at the moment, so I'm personally going to stay away from dnx until MS produce something that's close to their old RTM quality releases. It seems there's even a rival system with the dotnet CLI.
So I disagree strongly with the OP, it's not a great time to be a .NET developer. The improvements to C# and F#, yes, fantastic. But the ecosystem around it is so brittle at the moment; which is something that we never had to deal with in the past, and was one of the big selling points of the MS ecosystem.
It's still in development. In the past you weren't even able to glance inside the sausage factory. If you want something solid then wait until 1.0 is out, preferably 2.0.
Thanks for the history lesson. I am fully aware of what stage it's at. I am commenting on the solution and what appears to be a meandering target, with huge holes. It's currently at RC but no support for F#, no support for SignalR, VS2015 tooling is comically bad, cripplingly slow build times, and now a totally new toolchain (dotnet-CLI) that doesn't support the same dependency system that dnx supports.
That doesn't sound like a RC to me. I have a general feeling that the RTM standards are slipping massively at MS. Windows 10 was a dog when I tried it - and obviously not finished, VS2015 is very unstable, then the issues above... It feels like stuff is being pushed out the door much earlier than it previously would have been.
I do appreciate the direction they're taking, it just feels rudderless atm.
They may call it RC, but it's barely beta. Recently they said they'd take their time to get it right - less conference driven development. This is a new start, SignalR will come after RTM, so lots of things won't be there. Think of it as version 1 rather than 5. There's currently no VB support either, so F# may take a bit.
dotnet-cli is supposed to be a replacement for DNX. Personally, I'm trying to push to get a "classic" system-wide profile for .Net Core so I can just use CMake or whatever and not have to deal with the headache of dotnet-cli.
The whole thing is a total mess at the moment, so I'm personally going to stay away from dnx until MS produce something that's close to their old RTM quality releases. It seems there's even a rival system with the dotnet CLI.
So I disagree strongly with the OP, it's not a great time to be a .NET developer. The improvements to C# and F#, yes, fantastic. But the ecosystem around it is so brittle at the moment; which is something that we never had to deal with in the past, and was one of the big selling points of the MS ecosystem.